


a whole new world

by chrisevansisanassman



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Comedy, Established Relationship, Fluff, Grocery Shopping, IKEA Shopping, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, basically each chapter steve and bucky learn about the new world, by doing stupid things together, or at least i tried to make it comedic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-18 02:38:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7296163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrisevansisanassman/pseuds/chrisevansisanassman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky have found themselves in a whole new world, completely different from what they knew in their little apartment in Brooklyn so many years ago. Now, they're on a mission to discover what they've been missing out on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Trip to the Grocery Store

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I plan to post new chapters frequently where they explore new parts of the modern times. Next time, they'll check out IKEA.

“What the hell does ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ even mean?” Bucky asked, holding the container with a confused face. 

Steve laughed, “Honestly that isn’t  _ half  _ as confusing as some of the other things we’ve seen today.”

It was a quiet Monday afternoon, and Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were exploring, for the first time, a Target. Tony assured them that they could have all of this stuff delivered to the Avenger’s Tower, and Steve had depended on this for months now, but now they were defiant on learning as much as they could about the new era that they had emerged in.

“Things have changed.” Bucky stated plainly. 

Steve looked at his friend, glance shifting from his long, messy hair down to his metal arm and back up to his blue eyes. “Yeah, lots of things have changed.”

They shared a moment of smiling at one another, only interrupted by the shriek of a nearby child. Steve sprang into action, running towards the source of distress. Instead, he found a family out shopping, one of the little kids screaming about wanting fruit snacks. 

Steve laughed at himself, embarrassed but glad that everything was alright.

“What do you suppose Gushers are?” Steve asked with a chuckle, hoping to direct the attention away from him.

“I don’t know. It says that they’re ‘fruit snacks’. Why not just have fruit? Isn’t that a snack by itself?”

Steve shrugged. “Well, it says it’s made with real fruit juice.”

They made their way around the store, giggling at all the weird products together. Their shopping cart was getting quite full, and they were excited to head back to the Tower and try everything out. They just hoped that Natasha or Tony wouldn’t be there to tease them and call them ‘old, confused men’ as they usually do.

“Woah!” Bucky exclaimed. “They have pre-made pizzas now!”

“Honestly, what a good idea. The ingenuity of this new age continues to impress me.”

Bucky laughed, grabbing a box of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. “Does this impress you too, Cap?”

“Put them in the cart.”

Bucky grabbed a box from a freezer titled ‘Fire Crackers’. “Look, they’re red, white, and blue. You ought to get an endorsement with them. They can be called Capsicles or something.”

“It really astonishes me that you don’t have a job in marketing yet, Bucky.”

He shrugged. “Yeah this whole ‘superhero’ thing is kind of just a side job right now. I’m really going to focus on my future career of ice cream naming in the upcoming year.”

The candy aisle really took them for a trip. “Chocolate-covered cookie dough bites,” Steve mumbled to himself as they both kneeled down to observe all of the different boxes.

“Sounds like fun,” 

He grabbed a colorful bag and squinted to read the name. “Skittles?” He tossed those in the cart, too.

“How do you expect to pay for all of this?” Steve questioned, staring at their obscenely huge collection of assorted junk food.

Bucky laughed. “Definitely with that credit card that Tony gave me to use ‘only in emergencies’.”

“Yeah, that should be sufficient payback for his new nickname for you. What is it? ‘The Wiener Soldier’?”

Bucky shook his head, disappointed that Steve had to repeat it. “Next aisle,” he grumbled.

They moved ahead to the breakfast aisle. 

“Well, I must admit: the covers of our cereal boxes were never quite as fun as these.” Steve declared, trying to understand a certain box called ‘Count Chocula’.

“What are Pop Tarts?” Bucky questioned. “And why are there so many goddamned flavors.”

“Language,” Steve stated.

He chuckled, looking through the different types of toaster pastries. “Alright, old man.”

“No way!” Bucky exclaimed, running over to grab a box off the shelf. “Why did nobody tell us that there’s an Avengers Cereal?”

Steve grabbed the box quickly, mouth wide open. On the box was an image of Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, and Thor. “What is this? I never authorized this!”

“What’s wrong with it? You look pretty jacked.”

“Jacked?” Steve asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Yeah, it’s a new word I learned from the Internet.”

Steve just blushed embarrassedly as he put the box back. 

“C’mon, Cap,” Bucky said with a grin that only made Steve’s blush darken. “You look really cute, and I bet the cereal tastes even better.”

“Cute? Not many people describe me as cute.” 

“Well, you clearly haven’t been exploring the Internet as much as I have.” Before Steve could question this, Bucky said, “Look, they’re just little shapes of you guys.”

“Why is there no Black Widow shapes?” Steve questioned.

“Why are there no Bucky Barnes shapes is a better question.”

Steve just pushed the Avengers Cereal boxes to the back of the shelf.

“Maybe there was Winter Soldier cereal in the Soviet Union,” Bucky said to himself.

  
  


Back at the Avenger’s Tower, the boys digged into their feast, sitting on the kitchen floor together, giggling over the new tastes.

“Eugh!” Bucky shrieked, throwing a pouch of ‘Gushers’ against the wall. “I do  _ not  _ enjoy how that _ literally  _ gushed in my mouth.”

Steve laughed and nodded his head in agreement. “Yeah, these are bad.”

He grit his teeth in pain. “All this sugar is rushing into the cavities in my teeth.”

“That dentist that Tony hired for us is not going to be impressed by our new eating habits, Buck.”

“Oh, we can’t forget the Oreos!” Bucky exclaimed, grabbing the bag and savagely ripping it open as he’d done with almost everything. “Remember these in the good ole days, Steve? We used to save up our money to buy these.”

Steve stood up and headed towards the fridge. “We couldn’t dare eat them without milk.”

They both indulged in a few cookies. 

“They just don’t taste as good as they used to,” Steve said with a sigh.

“Are you kidding me?” Bucky scoffed. “Literally everything does.”

“Remember how we also used to split the cookies up, because I only liked the outside cookie parts, and you only like the cream on the inside?”

Bucky smiled. He  _ did  _ remember those times. 

They kept moving through the stacks of odd food. “We can’t forget about these Little Debbie things.” Bucky tossed a few boxes to Steve for examination.

“Hey,” Steve said with a chuckle. “Nutty Bars kind of sounds like Bucky Barnes.”

He stared at his friend with an unimpressed look. “Really? There were so many places you could have taken that joke, and you decided to go with  _ that  _ one?”

“I think ‘Cosmic Crunch Cupcake’ is what I’m going to start calling Thor,” Steve mumbled.

“That one was a little better,” Bucky decided. He found another Little Debbie snack and gave it to Steve. “A Honey Bun for my honey bun.”

Steve tried to not blush at the stupid joke and began to eat it. “Oh, jeez. This is really bad.”

Bucky laughed and took it back, “I’ll finish it for you then.” With a few big bites, the treat was gone.

“You used to eat my food when I couldn’t finish it all,” Steve said with a nostalgic grin.

“Yeah, well, you’re a little bigger now. I think you’ll be able to finish all your meals, these days.” 

The nearby stove beeped, informing them that their chicken nuggets were done. Steve got up and looked around for oven mitts, but he was still confused by the organizational techniques of the kitchen. 

“I got it!” Bucky said as he jumped up and raced over, grabbing the hot tray with his metal arm. 

Steve laughed and gave a shrug. “I guess that that’s one way to do it.”

“The pizza takes another twenty minutes, though.”

“You can really see the way that the crust is rising,” Steve observed through the window on the oven.

“It says to let these sit for five minutes before consuming,” Bucky read from the box. “But honestly we are chemically engineered super soldiers. We can eat these dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets whenever we want.”

Bucky grabbed the pterodactyl, “Look, it’s the Falcon!”

Steve went for the stegosaurus. They both took a bite and decided that they were somewhat unimpressed. 

“All these years of wondering what dinosaurs taste like and  _ this  _ is what we get?” Bucky muttered, shaking his head. “On the back of the box it says that we can call if we aren’t satisfied with the product.”

“Yeah, I’m not exactly sure what this is, but it’s certainly not chicken.”

“Time to put it to the Ole Test,” Bucky announced. His ‘Ole Test’ consisted of squirting Cheese Whiz on every single product, trying to decide what it was actually meant for.

“Next food!” he declared, apparently not enjoying the combination. He grabbed a new box. “Hey,” he giggled. “What are we… puttin’ on the Ritz?”

Steve shook his head, once again disappointed by his friend’s awful puns.

“Those are boring, let’s try these Pringles things. It’s an interestingly shaped container. But, I mean, no one can fit their hands inside of here.”

“Nah, let’s try some of these ‘Doritos’ things.” He tore open the bag, and plucked one out. Yet again, he giggled in anticipation of his next joke. “This chip kind of reminds me of your body, Steve.” 

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked angrily.

“See,” he laughed as he placed the triangular chip out in front of him. “You’re new name is Dorito Body.”

“Alright, Weiner Soldier.”

Bucky smiled, pulling him close and giving him a kiss. 

“Your lips taste like artificial fruit flavoring.” Steve mumbled with a wide grin on his face.

“That’s probably from all the Starbursts I ate.”

Suddenly the other Avengers walked into the kitchen, finding Steve and Bucky lying together, making out in a pile of junk food wrappers. 

“Seriously, guys?” Natasha said. “We spent the whole day on a mission!”

“Yeah, and you guys just spent the day eating Twinkies and making out?” Tony interjected as he took a picture with his phone for Twitter. “I’m not funding those credit cards anymore.”

  
  



	2. IKEA Adventures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys! thanks for reading. next time they're going to a modern amusement park. pack some sunscreen.

“Honey,” Bucky said, “the sink isn’t working.”

  
“Oh no! The fridge isn’t working either!” Steve replied, feining terror.

  
The other customers at IKEA gave them strange stares as the two men messed around like little kids in the kitchen showroom.

  
“Babe!” Steve yelled. “The cabinets are _completely_ empty!”

  
Bucky couldn’t help but laugh as he tried to keep the charade going. “Honey… I’m beginning to think that maybe…”

  
“Just maybe,” Steve interjected.

  
“This isn’t a real kitchen…”

  
They both broke into laughter, finally giving it up.

  
“I love this place,” Bucky stated. “We need to come here more often.”

  
The two had decided to spend their day off exploring another part of the ‘modern age’. Since being stuck in the ice since the 1940’s (give or take a few years), they really hadn’t gone out much. They had consulted Tony about it, but the first place he told them about was an establishment called ‘Chuck E Cheese’. They didn’t realize that it was a joke until they got inside and just saw hordes of little kids running like wild.

  
Natasha, however, realizing that she needed a new nightstand, told them to go to IKEA. She told them that it was a really fun shopping center that sold all the furniture they could ever imagine. Steve had to ask, still weary about their last suggestion from Tony, if there was a ball pit at this place. Luckily, she assured him that there was no such thing.

  
“I hate this one,” Bucky declared as they entered a new kitchen showroom. “Why does everything look so… old and beaten down?”

  
He shrugged. “All the tags just describe it as ‘rustic’. If you’re going to buy new furniture, why wouldn’t you want something that looked nice?”

  
“Yeah, half of this stuff looks worse than the kitchen utensils we had back in our apartment in Brooklyn.”

  
Steve laughed, thinking about their runny faucet and rusted pans. They used to clean the dishes together, Bucky would always convince him that drying was actually the harder job. Steve knew that it wasn’t, but he agreed to the arrangement anyways, just to see the accomplished smile on Bucky’s face when he gave in. Bucky would always insist on blowing soap bubbles at him, too.

  
They found their way to the bedroom showrooms, and, in unison, plopped down on a twin bed. There was a loud creak, and they were practically lying on top of one another, which made them laugh.

  
“Well, we used to fit in one of these things, you know, before we were turned into chemically engineered super soldiers,” Bucky said, trying to wiggle his metal arm from underneath Steve’s body.

  
“Yeah, that might be why they got us such a big bed at the Avenger’s Tower,” Steve said as he settled his head on Bucky’s chest, despite the creeping suspicion that the bed was close to collapsing.

  
Nearby, a couple of shoppers got a picture on their phone, excited to see their favorite superhero at their local IKEA. Bucky looked over and saw them taking a little video. He grinned real big, pried his hand free from underneath Steve, and gave a little wave.

  
“Hey, it’s me, the Winter Soldier. Don’t worry, though, I don’t speak Russian anymore.”

  
Steve gave out a childish giggle, knowing that he probably shouldn’t have. “Buck, stop,”

  
They both got off the bed, still worried that it might collapse under their combined weight. In agreement that they ought to stick to the queen-sized bed at home, they continued on.

  
“Hey, this bed set is really lovely,” Steve mumbled as he observed another bed. “We should buy this, don’t you think?”

  
Bucky scoffed, “Wow, you really have a knack for picking out the sheets that most look like they belong in the house of my grandma Edna, huh?”

  
Steve rolled his eyes, his usual sign of affection used for his boyfriend. “I’m still going to buy the bed set, Bucky.”

 

“Really? ‘Cause I just spotted an Avengers bed set that looks _much_ cuter. I’ve always wanted to sleep _with_ Captain America while sleeping _on_ Captain America.”

  
“Keep this up and I might have to kick you out of the apartment. You do realize it’s called the Avenger’s Tower, not the Home for Ex-Brainwashed Soviet Union Soldiers.”

  
“Well, thank God, ‘cause that would be a helluva title.”

  
They continued on through the store, and Bucky had to talk Steve out of buying at least fifty different variations of Old Lady bedsheets. He just really liked floral, evidently.'

  
“Look, Stevie!” Bucky yelped, pointing at another bed. “We always dreamed about having a headboard! I won’t tell the others why, though, if we get it. I promise.”

  
Steve blushed deeply. “It was more of a style choice, Buck. And I’ll deny it if you ever claim otherwise.”

  
“They really got very innovative with storage, as well.” Steve noted, examining the pull-out drawers hidden on the underneath of a bed.

  
Bucky laughed. “Yeah, we used to just throw all of our shit underneath there.”

  
They had some more good moments throughout the bedroom showrooms, including when Steve tried to read the (very convincing) books on the bookshelf, only to find that they were completely fake. Bucky got a good laugh out of that. He also made a comment along the lines of ‘I guess beauty and brains _aren’t_ synonymous’.

  
Then, while Steve and Bucky were separated as they both explored different parts of a showroom, a woman began flirting with Steve. He was being very polite, so polite that she didn’t realize that he was trying to insinuate he was here with his boyfriend. Bucky noticed immediately and decided to have some fun.

  
“Hey, babe,” he began, grabbing onto the door of the bedrooms closet. “Isn’t this a lovely closet?”

  
Steve just nodded slightly, upset at Bucky for being so uncouth.

  
“Remember when you came out of the closet?” Bucky continued, laughing to himself. “Good memories.”

  
The lady got the point, however, and moved on. Steve, embarrassed by the encounter and slightly mad at Bucky, grabbed his shoulder and began to drag him away, muttering, “I’m bisexual, anyways.”

  
Next, Steve had to convince Bucky that they did _not_ need bead curtains for every door in the Avenger’s Tower. “C’mon! It adds class, and I think it would really help calm that big green guy down”, he claimed.

  
“What about this big, pink ceiling canopy?” Bucky questioned.

  
“Buck, I’m pretty sure that’s for stuffed animals.”

  
“Well, I think it would make a lovely bed for your shield.”

  
“It could fall and hurt someone.”

  
“That’s what you do with it normally!”

  
While Steve wasn’t looking, Bucky jotted down the number for the pink canopy.

  
They followed the arrows on the ground throughout the store, looking at everything. Soon, however, they noticed that they were lost and the arrows weren’t making sense anymore. Bucky _could have sworn_ that he'd seen that big canvas painting of the Eiffel Tower before, because he had dropped more than a few hints about wanting his French-speaking boyfriend to take him on a romantic trip to Paris.

  
“There’s no way this store could be so big. I don’t believe it. We're lost.”

  
“What makes you think that we're lost?”

  
Bucky informed him about the Eiffel Tower painting, and how he's been trying to get Steve to take him to France for a little fondue.

  
“Don't ever mention fondue to me again,” Steve demanded. “We really can't get lost in here, Buck. I mean, we've fought Nazis but we can't figure our way around a home's goods store?”

  
“Are you sure you know what you're doing?”

  
“Yeah, I've knocked Adolf Hitler out over-”

  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bucky interrupted with an eye roll. “I've heard it a million times.”

  
They just kept walking around, choosing to ignore the fact that they were still somewhat lost.

***

After what must have been five hours of trying to escape that goddamned store, Steve and Bucky found themselves, once again, on the kitchen floor of the Avenger’s Tower. This time, however, they were trying to put together IKEA furniture.

  
“I'm telling you, Steve, that's not where that screw goes. It's all in the instructions.”

  
Steve, as obstinate as ever, muttered something about how he can do it just fine without the instructions, _thank you very much._

  
“This is the night stand for Nat, and I really don't wanna mess this up. She could do some serious damage to us, you know that? You don’t even want to know the things she says about you in Russian.”

  
Tony stumbled into the kitchen, saw what they were doing, and made a little _tsk, tsk, tsk_ noise. “The boys are back at it again. Steve Jobs and Bucky the Builder.”  
They both just stared at him with blank faces.

  
Tony shrugged. “Yeah, they weren't very good in the first place. It's probably best you don't get those references anyways.”

  
He watched judgingly as the boys struggled to construct the tiny piece of Swedish furniture. It was almost comical, really, if he hadn't been worried every two seconds that they were gonna scuff up the marble flooring with the hammer.

  
Steve, deciding that perhaps the instructions wouldn't be bad to read, squinted confused at them for about two minutes. That was, of course, until Bucky informed him that he was reading the Swedish side.

  
“Note to self.” Steve muttered. “Learn Swedish.”

  
They ended up with quite the… Unstable night stand, with a few screws quite noticeably in the wrong place.

  
“Uh, she will love it,” Bucky reassured Steve as they stared at it disappointedly.

  
Steve began to disassemble the night stand, determined to fix his mistakes and conquer this task. Bucky, however, pulled him away.

  
“Buddy, if it's not broken, don't fix it,” he tried to tell Steve.

  
Tony, still watching as he ate dinner from nearby table, just laughed. “Really? ‘Cause from over here it looks pretty broken.”

  
Steve let out an exasperated sigh, going to look through the other boxes of things that they bought. He then berated Bucky for buying the pink canopy that they ‘will never need or use’. Bucky then suggested that Thor would be much more appreciative of it, anyways. ‘He'd put his big hammer thing in it’. Steve tried to convince him that he didn't even know who Thor was, but Bucky just kept insisting that the hammer thing would fit nicely in it.

  
“It astonishes me how little he's tried to learn about the other Avengers,” Tony muttered in a disapproving but overall friendly tone.

  
“Don't you have a science project to work on?” Bucky yelled back as he tried to unpackage the bead curtains that he had also bought behind Steve's back.

  
“Captain Rogers, can you please control your toddler a little better. At this rate, he'll use up all of our funds on decorations made for a tween girl's bedroom.”  
Steve was too impressed by Bucky’s cunning stealth to be mad. He pulled the beaded curtains out of his hands and leant in to kiss him. Somehow they always ended up like this.

  
Later, when Natasha had arrived back at the tower and gotten a glimpse of her new night stand, she couldn't help but grimace. She felt like a mom accepting a macaroni necklace from her little kids. Steve convinced her just to take the one they had in their room; he couldn't help but adore the ugly night stand that they made together.


	3. A Day at Coney Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I did loads of research for this but I'm nearly positive that there are a few historically inaccurate moments and I'm sorry about that? it's really cute and gay tho so i think that that makes up for it?

“Goddammit, Steve,” Bucky bemoaned. 

“I’m doing this for your health! The sun kills, Buck,” Steve replied as he slathered sunscreen onto any visible bit of skin on his boyfriend’s body. 

“One of my limbs is literally metal. Are you going to put sunscreen on that, too?”

He considered it for only a moment before asking slowly, “Should I?” He then gave an indignant sigh and put the lotion back into his fanny pack. Tony had given it to him, telling him that it was a really trendy and useful accessory. 

Since their defrosting, Steve and Bucky had been slowly exploring the new world that they had awoken to. They hadn’t even considered the fact that a place they had loved so much, like Coney Island, could have changed. It was brought to their attention one night when Bucky was trying to tell the others the legendary story of Steve Throwing Up On the Cyclone and Then Getting Smacked By the Lady That Got Hit By His Throw Up. Steve did not find it as comical as the others did. 

“I kinda hope it hasn’t changed too much, you know?” Bucky mumbled. 

“Wow, was that some genuine sentimentality from James Buchanan Barnes?” 

Bucky rolled his eyes and began to threaten to wash off all of the sunscreen that Steve had forcibly applied to his skin. A sudden ding from his cell phone distracted him, however.

“Is that your girlfriend?” Steve asked with a smug grin.

No, actually, it was Sam Wilson reminding them not to forget to take lots of selfies together. He replied with something along the lines of I always take pics 4 u bby. ;)

Sam replied, ‘What did I tell you about using text talk? No one uses it anymore.’

Bucky shook his head with a grin and exited out of the messaging app, still getting used to the functions of the new cell phone. Tony had tried to explain it all to him and Steve before he got exhausted by their confusion and gave up.

Steve peered over Bucky’s shoulder, wondering if he still had the background set as a picture of them together from the 1940’s. He did.

“Where do you wanna start?” Bucky asked, with the amusement of a child in his voice.  
They began moving down the boardwalk, taking everything in.

Bucky gasped at the sight of a food cart. “Nat said that we had to get fried candy bars,” Bucky gushed, walking up to the car and reading all the options. 

“I’m not quite sure what most of those foods are,” Steve confessed. “And why does it all have to be fried?”

Bucky shrugged and decided to order for the both of them. He asked for two fried Oreos, two fried Milky Way bars, two Three Musketeers bars, and two Snickers bars, all while ignoring Steve’s slightly judgemental face.

As they payed, the man working the cart asked, “Wait a minute… are you Captain America.”

The two shared a look, and Bucky grabbed his boyfriend’s shoulders. “No, actually, he’s not. We actually hate that guy. Like, who just declares himself the captain of a country just because he got some serum and a frisbee. Honestly, what a hack.”

The man, after seeing Bucky, was positive that it was Steve Rogers, but he just gave an awkward laugh and shook his head. “Have a good day, you too.”

They walked away, arms full with their order, chuckling like two schoolboys. “You have got to learn how to talk to strangers, Buck.”

“First, we eat.” 

They tore through their hefty order, amazed by how good it all tasted. Bucky, ignoring his greasy fingers, took out his phone and sent a picture to Sam and Natasha. 

Nat responded with a picture of the kale salad that she was apparently eating, and Sam just responded with ‘have fun throwing up on the roller coasters’.

“He has a good point,” Steve mentioned. “Maybe we shouldn’t have filled up on fried junk before going on all the rides.”

Bucky just laughed. “Well, I only ever remembering you throwing up on them, so I think that I’m safe. You just try to keep yourself steady, old man. You can hold my hand on the ride, if you want.”

Steve just replied with a bitter look.

Flash forward about thirty minutes or so, after they had taken their first ride on the Cyclone, and Bucky was throwing up into a trashcan. Steve waited to laugh until after he made sure that he was okay. 

“Don’t you dare say it, Rogers,” he muttered, wishing he could get the taste of vomit out of his mouth. 

“I have absolutely nothing to say,” Steve replied, focusing on not laughing as he pulled out an Altoid from his fanny pack.

“Yeah, I’m going to need a few more,” Bucky confessed.

They both laughed it off, even though Bucky was not necessarily enjoying the switched roles. It was decided that they should hold off on the rides for a little bit and look at some of the other nearby attractions.

“Hey,” Bucky said as they walked down a long boardwalk. “This is where they used to have all of the strange carnival people, remember? Like the psychics, the ‘headless girl’, and the biggest woman in the world?”

Steve scoffed, “Yes, it’s hard to forget that, considering every time we were there you threatened to sell me off as the World’s Scrawniest Man.”

Bucky let out a sharp laugh before quickly controlling himself, shaking his head erratically. “No, no, I don’t remember that at all, Stevie. I think you’re just making this stuff up to make me look bad.”

He just laughed along with him. “I don’t even have to try to make you look bad… you do that all on your own, Buck.”

“Yeah, well, don’t laugh for too long. Now we could both be sold, the two super soldiers.”

He shook his head. “More like the Extremely Cool Guy with a Metal Arm and the Lame Old Man Who Cries at Titanic.”

“We’re the same age, Buck,” Steve replied exasperatedly.

Bucky just chose to ignore him, deciding that it was time for more rides. “The Thunderbolt looks like fun, let’s go.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go for a ride on the carousel… I’d think that maybe that’s more your speed.”

“Oh, ha, ha. Very funny, Rogers,” Bucky muttered bitterly, frowning until Steve leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek, mumbling something about how he didn’t mean it.

As they waited in the long line, they decided to text Sam and Natasha an update on their date. Well, it was actually Steve who had thought it was a good time for an update. Really, he just wanted them to know that it was Bucky who threw up, not him for once.

“What did they say?” Bucky asked as he took some photos of the park around him while they waited.

Steve squinted at his phone confusedly. “Uh, I’m not exactly sure. Sam just sent what looks like a yellow face laughing with tears coming out of it’s eyes.”

Bucky let out a chuckle. “Those are emojis, buddy.”

“Emojis?”

“Yes, from what I’ve gathered, they’re the hieroglyphics of this generation.”

Steve made a mental note to learn more about these newfangled emojis. “Natasha has yet to reply.”

“Hm, maybe she’s actually working. Imagine that.” Bucky mumbled with a grin.

Steve smiled, too, thinking about how he’s actually enjoyed his days off now that he has his boyfriend back. He used to dread having all that free time, but now he gets truly excited, planning days like these. 

Finally, they were able to get on the ride. Bucky was mostly just hoping that the fried food that he had consumed earlier wouldn’t be making another surprise appearance.

The cart began by creeping up vertically, then it hung in the air for only a moment until it dipped straight down, picking up speed quickly. Next, they were launched into a wide loop, and Bucky had to grab onto his baseball cap to make sure that it wouldn’t fall right off. The rest of the ride consisted of corkscrew-like twists. 

They both had to admit, it was nice having some adrenaline pumped into them without having to worry about a mission or saving the world or something. It was quite therapeutic for them just to relax this way. While it was nowhere near what they’ve experienced in their line of work, it was still exciting.

That being said, they agreed to come back to the Thunderbolt one more time, after checking everything else out.

Next, just for laughs, they checked out the ‘Raceway’. 

“You better not crash into me, Buck,” Steve warned.

Bucky scoffed. “I’m a very good driver, Steven Grant Rogers, and if I wanted to sabotage you, I’d just pull the steering wheel off.”

Steve had flashbacks, remembering why exactly Sam was a little cold to his newly revived friend at first.

Bucky called the teal car, and Steve chose red. While there were lots of people on the track, it was really just a race between the two men. They used the same intensity and focus that they would use on a mission, and they looked only a little ridiculous. As they were driving, both completely emerged in the experience, they only broke their serious expression once to smile at one another.

In the end, it was a twelve year old boy who won the race.

Bucky, trying not to look embarrassed, mumbled something about how ‘S.H.I.E.L.D should hire him as a secret agent’, which made Steve chuckle.

“What next?” Steve inquired.

“What do you want to do? You keep letting me pick, but I wanna know what Steve Rogers wants to ride.”

His cheeks got a little pink as he thought of a funny joke, deciding it was not suitable in public. Instead, he answered, “I just want to do whatever you want to do.”

Bucky, however, had no qualms about making dirty jokes in public, unsurprisingly. “Well, he’s standing right beside me.”

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

To be honest, though, there was something that Steve wanted to do. He was, uh, a little embarrassed to admit it. 

“It’s just,” Steve began to explain. “Remember when we were little kids, and we would ride the teacups and it was the most exhilarating thing in the world?”

Bucky, realizing where this was going, grinned happily. “You want to ride the teacups, Steve?”

He shook his head, “No, no. Sorry. It was a bad idea.”

Instead of listening to his boyfriend, Bucky grabbed his arm and dragged him to the teacup ride, Steve protesting the entire time. If he had wanted to, he would have pulled away. But clearly, Captain America really wanted to ride on the teacups at Coney Island, and Bucky would be damned if he didn’t.

“We’re too old,” Steve pointed out in his last attempt to refuse. “And too… big.”

“C’mon, it’s gonna be just like the good ‘ol days. We need to split a funnel cake after this, though, to really recreate the experience.”

Steve, regardless of Bucky’s encouragement, still felt like a fool as they settled into a pastel pink teacup. They did look rather silly, but it was worth it in the end, at least to Bucky. He loved watching Steve let go of his stoic facade and return to the little kid from Brooklyn with a soft heart and wide smile. 

He loved watching him whirl around in the teacup so much that he couldn’t help but pull out his cell phone and take a few pictures. He decided that he wasn’t going to send these photos to the others, however. 

After the ride, they did get a funnel cake to share. Just like the old days, Bucky ate most of it, and Steve didn’t mind at all.

As the sun began to sink against the horizon, filling the sky with the most beautiful colors, Steve couldn’t help but think it looked rather like an oil painting. Considering all of the photos that Bucky had been taking that day, the ferris wheel would be the best place for him to capture the sunset.

“C’mon, we have one last ride to go on,” Steve said with smile as he lead Bucky to the Wonder Wheel.

As cliche as it sounds, it really was the perfect ending to a perfect day. They kissed as the cart reached the top of the wheel, and Bucky took a beautiful photo of the moment, making sure to shamelessly send it to everyone in his contact list.


End file.
